Smart Rewards program pays you in promotions for your loyalty to Verizon

Verizon is providing subscribers with incentives for being loyal through a new Smart Rewards program. Described as a rewards program where customers gain "points...for their everyday activities and interactions with Verizon Wireless," the Smart Rewards program brings savings, discount offers, and promotions from established brands and local retailers to participants.

"The program delivers more value to customers in the form of discounts and savings of up to 40 percent on brand-name merchandise from more than 200 well-known brands, offers on local shopping and dining redeemable directly from a customer's wireless device, and travel including discounts at more than 26,000 hotels," Verizon said of its Smart Rewards program.

The aim of the program is to give Verizon and marketers more insight into your life. Customers can earn points by "signing in to the My Verizon online account management tool, paying your monthly bill, and other transactions like using the Verizon Trade In program or choosing paperless billing."

Are you ready to divulge more information about yourself to Verizon? Do you find that this is a good program?

I signed up and looked through the 'promotions' and it is an insult to Verizon customers.

You pay for discounts with points you earn by being a customer but the 'rewards' are not rewards. In fact, you will pay more for many things using this program vs. ordering from Amazon or going to your local Target or Wall Mart. They have 'auctions' for cool stuff like an iPad Air but it is the same as the other scam auction sites in that the auction is extended by a few seconds each time someone bids- more like a carnival game than eBay.

Heck, no. I PAY Verizon plenty of money every month. I might, MIGHT do this for an additional discount on my service. Otherwise, this will just generate spam and ways for me to spend money in ways I don't need to.

I am willing to trade some of my privacy to Google because their services work and are pretty awesome (as long as I don't have to sign up for G+ to use them).
But I understand the difference (or what is supposed to be a difference) between a service for "free" and one that I pay for.

Just left Verizon for T-Mobile. Saving $100/month over three lines. So the coverage isn't so good...we can live with it for that kind of savings. Smart rewards? Forget it - it wasn't smart to stay with VZW in the first place.

So your outta luck when you leave your home/work and WiFi connection? I've dropped fewer calls on Verizons network in 2 years than I did in a typical week of T-Mobile service. When you actually need a phone for more than play you'll understand the importance of good coverage.

Exactly. I've been with Verizon since 2001 and I'm still amazed when people that I work with have to leave a building to make a call or to check if they received a text message. I'm not a fan of the prices and the dropping/lack of grandfathering of unlimited data, but I will never bitch about the coverage.

>I'm the kind of guy who stops a microwave at one second to feel like a bomb defuser.

Nothing will sway me away from my 2 lines grandfathered into Unlimited data!!!! I pay for phones off-contract. At 6 and 12gb average per month on each device There isn't a plan anywhere that compares to the deal I get right now. If they ever force me off then I'll go with the cheapest service I can find.

I was offered early access to this and saw right away that it was nothing but a scam. The rewards aren't worth anything. This great "value" is offset by signing away all of what little privacy you may have left using a Verizon cell phone.
Run, don't walk, away from this offer!!!

I got this months ago. I've used it only for BOGO offers at a smoothie place my wife and I like. that's it. I got rewards points dating back to my 2005 join date and I see nothing worth getting with the points.

I've been using the program for awhile, and it is truly the worst point rewards program I ever seen. Verizon couldn't be nice like other companies and give us points that we can actually use like cash back. Instead, the discounts are very limited and even the gift cards are like only $10 bucks off a $100 Kohls GC. The daily deal is almost always crap. Every now and then, they will give you a free GC, but you have to remember to be logged in at exactly 1pm every day or these will sell out immediately. So frustrating when I forget to check.

The auctions are a complete waste of time. Even with the non-extended play ones, you have to be the lucky person who clicked your mouse at the last second to win the auction. With thousands of people clicking at the same time, the odds of winning are nearly impossible. Verizon must think their customers are really stupid.

I completely agree with your comment about the auctions! Those are ridiculous and a complete waste of time! You have no idea if you're the winning bidder because thousands of people are clicking away in the final seconds of the bid life and most of the time your "clicks" don't even register. I gave up on trying to win any auctions today and will probably never even use the program. I wonder how you opt out/if able to at all? The merchandise they offer is over priced so the "discount" you think you're getting isn't one at all. This program blows like a hurricane and I don't suggest signing up. I do, however, LOVE the service they offer and will probably be a Verizon customer for life...unless AT&T can step their game up!

The auctions are totally bogus and a total waste of time. Who has hours on end to rapidly click and never win any auctions? Why can't you bid using a maximum bid, similar to Ebay? All I was interested in was to use my points for Verizon gift cards to apply to my bill. Please Verizon do away with the ridiculous points program and give us value that we can really use, LIKE OPTIONS TO LOWER THE MONTHLY BILLS!! I have three smart phones and pay over $244. I can barely afford it.

I don't exactly agree with you. Yeah your odds are pretty low but I won like $230 in VZW gift cards all that went toward a gigantic phone bill I had this last month. It sliced that puppy in nearly half. I don't normally have a bill like that but I had changed some phones and what not recently. Either way if you're persistent on it you will win those gift cards. That and they have a daily deal everyday if you're around your computer at 1pm you can usually nab a $10 or $5 VZW gift card. That may not sound that great but add that up 5-10 times a month and you just cut a big chunk off your phone bill.

I'm not defending Verizon in the least nor do I work for them or anything like that. I'm simply saying everyone who is saying this reward program sucks hasn't really looked at the entire picture.

I have written many auction web sites in the past and what Verizon calls "auction" is definitely not even close. Yes they use the "bid" vernacular but that's like calling your car an "auction" because your calling the wheels "bids".

The points-only auctions are, as stated, won by whoever their system interprets as the last person to hit "I WANT IT". Again, this is not bidding. You cannot say "I'll bid XX points for this", the best you can do is hit the misleading BID button and hope for the best. I have had 3 different browsers running simultaneously watching the same auction and all 3 had a different countdown timer (anywhere from 1-3 seconds different). Again, this is NOT AN AUCTION (VERIZON WAKE UP!!!),

As for the "extended play" auctions, these are a joke. I spent 3 hours clicking "I WANT IT" (labelled 'bid') until the system logged me out. By the time I returned it was a done deal.

All the merchandise they have listed can be purchased for the "discounted price" without the use of any points by simply doing a search on Google.

Hopefully Verizon will realize how useless this program is and do something about it. In the mean time I am going to continue accumulating my 120,000+ "valuable" points...

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